Kidnap Dad Arrested, Daughter Will Be Reunited With Mom

Clark Rockefeller, suspected of kidnapping his 7-year-old daughter in Boston last week, was taken into custody in Baltimore today, law enforcement officials said.

Rockefeller was arrested outside an apartment he had rented in the Mount Vernon section of Baltimore. His daughter, Reigh Boss, was found unharmed inside the apartment, police said.

When she saw the faces of Baltimore FBI agents and police, the girl reportedly cried out, "I'm so happy to see nice people," FBI Special Agent Noreen Gleason said today at a news conference.

Boston Police Department Deputy Superintendent Thomas Lee said that when Reigh's terrified mother, Sandra Boss, heard the news that her daughter had been rescued, she collapsed into his arms.

"I caught her. She fainted dead away," Lee said. "She was overjoyed."

Play

null

Boss is reportedly on her way to reunite with Reigh and has spoken to the girl on the phone, police said.

When the two spoke, Reigh told her mother, "Daddy left me alone but these nice people came to get me," according to Elaine Driscoll, a spokeswoman for the Boston Police Department.

Local FBI agents and Baltimore police, tipped off to Rockefeller's location from a call from a concerned citizen, were able to arrest Rockefeller after luring him out of the Ploy Street apartment with a ruse, Boston Police Commissioner Edward Davis said.

Rockefeller had docked a 26-foot catamaran at the nearby Anchorage marina. Law enforcement agents called Rockefeller from the marina and said the boat was taking on water, Davis said. Rockefeller was arrested as soon as he left the apartment.

Rockefeller faces charges including custodial kidnapping and assault and battery. He is scheduled to be arraigned in Baltimore on Monday.

His arrest may shed light on the background of the man who goes by the name Clark Rockefeller, which still remains a mystery to police. "We're still efforting his real identity," Davis said.

Rockefeller allegedly implied to friends and acquaintances that he was a member of the storied Rockefeller clan, as well as allegedly claiming that he was a physicist and a philanthropist.

But as police began investigating him, they found that facts about Rockefeller, who allegedly also went by several other aliases, were hard to come by. Authorities were unable to find a valid social security number or marriage certificate for Rockefeller; one police official described him as a "ghost."

Authorities believe Rockefeller kidnapped Reigh during a supervised visit on Sunday. The alleged abduction set off a week-long search for the pair, with suspected sightings called in to police from around the country and as far away as the Caribbean island Turks and Caicos.

Police initially suspected that Rockefeller may have fled the country on a recently purchased catamaran, after he allegedly told friends in Boston about wanting to travel to Alaska, Peru and Bermuda on the yacht.

Driscoll today described the catamaran found in Baltimore as a "real fixer-upper. It would have been tough to get far in it."

Police said it was still unclear if Rockefeller planned to flee on the boat.

During the alleged abduction, a black SUV pulled up and Rockefeller allegedly lifted the child into the car, eluding a social worker who was overseeing the visitation with his daughter and tried to stop the vehicle.

From there, police say, Rockefeller and Reigh were dropped by an unwitting livery driver -- who since has cooperated with police -- at a Boston hospital where 30-year-old Aileen Ang, an acquaintance of Rockefeller's he met at a Boston sailing club, picked up the father and daughter and drove them to New York City.

Rockefeller's arrest may shed light on his mysterious past. "Nobody knows who this guy is," a high-ranking Boston police official assigned to the task force in charge of investigating Rockefeller's background told ABC News earlier this week. "He is a ghost."

Boston police said investigators have not located a valid Social Security number for Rockefeller. They have also found no wedding certificate documenting his marriage to Sandra Boss, the mother of the missing child who got custody of the little girl after their 2007 divorce, the official said.

The task force has not found any work history for Rockefeller, who told one former neighbor in New Hampshire that he was a "physicist" and fashioned himself as a "philanthropist" who sat on the boards of various nonprofits.

Investigators also are unclear about Rockefeller's education history, the official said, despite reports that he commonly told acquaintances he attended Yale and Harvard. Some people have told authorities that Rockefeller said that his parents died in a car crash when he was young; others were told he was homeschooled as a kid.

The Boston Police Department last placed Rockefeller at Grand Central Terminal in New York City. He had told Ang that he was heading for a boat he had recently purchased, a 72-foot catamaran called Serenity.

Rockefeller, who has been connected to several aliases, is not a descendant of John D. Rockefeller, the wealthy New York industrialist, but he apparently did not dissuade other people from assuming they may be related.

When the Rev. Brian Marsh of Trinity Church in Cornish, N.H., where Rockefeller and Boss attended church until about two years ago, asked about Rockefeller's famous last name, he said Rockefeller didn't answer him directly.

Instead, he took out a pocketknife with the name "Nelson Rockefeller" on it, Marsh said. "He implied a connection."

Other neighbors in Cornish, a former artist's colony where Rockefeller and his wife Sandra purchased a historic property, described the kidnapping suspect as "elusive" and "vague" about personal details. They said he was a doting dad, but described him as paranoid, noting that he built a mote around the property and set up a security perimeter.

Rockefeller, known for his preppy attire, also allegedly boasted an extensive art collection that he said included several original works by Mark Rothko.

Rockefeller and Boss, who reportedly married in the early 1990s on the Massachusetts island of Nantucket, divorced in 2007. A judge impounded the divorce case file at the couple's request.

Boss, an executive level consultant who attended Harvard Business School, was awarded custody of their daughter and changed the child's name from Reigh Rockefeller to Reigh Boss.

Rockefeller was allowed supervised visits with his daughter. On Sunday afternoon, when the alleged kidnapping took place, the child and her mother were in Boston from their current home in London so that Rockefeller could see his daughter.

Ordinarily, Massachusetts authorities do not use the Amber Alert system for custodial kidnappings, but after the social worker was injured trying to stop the SUV that snatched up the child and her father, investigators agreed that there should be a statewide manhunt for Rockefeller and his daughter, said BPD spokeswoman Elaine Driscoll.

Rockefeller is a former board director of the Algonquin Club of Boston, a private dining club founded in 1888 that is just blocks from where the alleged kidnapping took place. Lassaad Riahi, the general manager at the Algonquin Club, told ABCNews.com that Rockefeller resigned his membership from the club three months ago "on his own terms."

Sandra Boss, the child's mother, is a senior partner in the London office of McKinsey & Company. She has done consultant work for New York Sen. Charles Schumer and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, and has ties to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.